Fatigue is a common complaint in older people. Laboratory-induced muscle fatigue has been found to affect physical functions in older populations but these protocols are rigorous and are unlikely to accurately reflect daily activities. This study used an ecological approach to determine the effects of a busy day on self-reported fatigue and fall-related measures of physical and cognitive function in older people. Fifty community-dwelling adult volunteers, aged 60-88 (mean 73) years participated in this randomised crossover trial...

Denervation leads to significant muscle atrophy, but it is less clear whether 1) loss of capillaries, fibre size and oxidative capacity decline in parallel and 2) the time course of these changes differs between young and old animals. To investigate this, we denervated the left gastrocnemius muscle for 1, 2 or 4 weeks, while the right muscle served as an internal control, in rats that were 5- or 25 months old at the end of the experiment. In the fast part of the gastrocnemius muscle, almost all atrophy had occurred after two weeks (42%) of denervation...

Understanding the influence of strength training intensity on subsequent recovery in elderly is important to avoid reductions in physical function during the days following training. Twenty-two elderly were randomized in two groups: G70 (65.9 ± 4.8 years, n = 11) and G95 (66.9 ± 5.1, n = 11). Baseline tests included maximum voluntary isometric contraction (peak torque and rate of torque development - RTD), countermovement jump, and functional capacity (timed up and go, stairs ascent and descent)...

A large part of age-related muscle wasting is due to incomplete reinnervation of fibres that have become denervated following motoneuron loss. Neural cell adhesion molecule (NCAM) and sodium channel NaV1.5 are considered markers for denervation, but the time course of changes in their expression following denervation has never been systematically evaluated in young-adult and old muscle. To assess the time course of denervation-induced changes in their expression, the left gastrocnemius muscle in 15 young-adult (5-month) and 10 old (25-month) male Wistar rats was denervated for 1, 2 or 4 weeks, while the right muscle served as an internal control...

Episodic memory decline is one of the earlier deficits occurring during normal aging in humans. The question of spatial versus non-spatial sensitivity to age-related memory decline is of importance for a full understanding of these changes. Here, we characterized the effect of normal aging on both non-spatial (object) and spatial (object location) memory performances as well as on associated neuronal activation in mice. Novel-object (NOR) and object-location (OLR) recognition tests, respectively assessing the identity and spatial features of object memory, were examined at different ages...

Aging is associated with increased body fat and lower lean body mass, which leads to increased prevalence of obesity and metabolic syndrome. This study aimed to investigate the association of regular participation in walking and body mass index (BMI) with metabolic syndrome and its 5 criteria in elderly Koreans. A total of 3554 (male = 1581, female = 1973) elderly subjects (age ≥ 65 years), who participated in the Fifth Korea National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (KNHANES V) were analyzed in this cross-sectional study...

BACKGROUND: Several studies have examined the association between telomere length and frailty, but results from these studies are contradictory. Therefore, we conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis to examine the association between telomere length and frailty. METHODS: We searched the literature in Ovid (MEDLINE), Embase, PubMed, Web of Knowledge and Cochrane databases in July 2017 for studies evaluating the association of telomere length and the risk of frailty...

Observational epidemiological evidence supports a linear and independent association between serum gamma-glutamyltransferase (GGT) concentrations and the risk of Alzheimer's disease (AD). However, the causality of this association has not been previously investigated. We sought to assess the causal nature of this association using a Mendelian randomization (MR) approach. Using inverse-variance weighted MR analysis, we assessed the association between GGT and AD using summary statistics for single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP)-AD associations obtained from the International Genomics of Alzheimer's Project of 17,008 individuals with AD and 37,154 controls...

PURPOSE: Age related macular degeneration (AMD) is a leading cause of irreversible visual loss in developed countries. It is associated with vascular risk factors including hypertension. Dysregulated blood pressure (BP) behaviour including orthostatic hypertension (OHTN), hypotension (OH) and BP variability (BPV) are associated with end-organ damage, particularly in the brain. We investigated if abnormal orthostatic BP (OBP) was a risk factor for AMD, for which a vascular aetiology is implicated...

Ultraviolet B (UVB) irradiation is regarded as the main cause of skin photodamage. After exposure to UVB irradiation, collagen degradation is accelerated by upregulation of matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs), and collagen synthesis is decreased via downregulation of transforming growth factor (TGF)-β1 signaling. Borage officinalis L. (BO) is an annual herb with medicinal and culinary applications. Although BO has been demonstrated to have antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities, its potential anti-photoaging effects have not been examined...

BACKGROUND: Studies have demonstrated that liver enzymes are associated with metabolic syndrome (MetS). However, little information is available regarding these relationships in elderly populations. Our present study aimed to explore the associations between liver enzymes and the risk of MetS in elderly populations. METHODS: This cross-sectional study included 1444 elder participants (970 men and 474 women) who attended annual physical examinations. Univariate and multivariate logistic regressions were performed to estimate the associations between liver enzymes and the risk of MetS and its components according to quartiles of the concentration of each liver enzyme...

BACKGROUND AND AIM: Frailty is characterized by several deficits in multiple health related domains. Although cognition is among the important components of frailty, there is lack of evidence on the role of specific neuro-cognitive dimensions. The primary aim of the present work was to evaluate the multidimensional definition of frailty, and to assess whether neuro-cognitive function is a constituent of the frailty syndrome among adults aged ≥50 years living in three European countries...

OBJECTIVES: To investigate the relationship between involuntary weight loss with low muscle mass and health-related quality of life in a large representative sample of older adults. METHODS: A nationwide cross-sectional study based on data from the Korea National Health and Nutritional Examination Survey, 2008 to 2011. Study participants included 2249 individuals aged ≥70 years. The participants reported an unintentional weight loss >3 kg in the past year...

BACKGROUND: Hospitalization of older medical patients may lead to functional decline. This study investigated whether simultaneously applied neuromuscular electrical stimulation (NMES) can enhance the effects of a functional training program in hospitalized geriatric patients. METHOD: This was a quasi-randomized controlled trial in geriatric hospitalized patients (N = 16, age = 83.1 ± 8.1 years, mean ± SD). The patients performed a simple and time efficient chair-stand based functional exercise program daily, either with (FT + NMES, N = 8) or without (FT, N = 8) simultaneous NMES to the knee extensor muscles...

Age-induced mitochondrial DNA deletion mutations may underlie cell loss and tissue aging. Rapamycin extends mouse lifespan and modulates mitochondrial quality control. We hypothesized that reduced deletion mutation abundance may contribute to rapamycin's life extension effects. To test this hypothesis, genetically heterogeneous male and female mice were treated with rapamycin, compounded in chow at 14 or 42 ppm, from 9 months to 22 months of age. Mice under a 40% dietary restriction were included as a control known to protect mtDNA quality...

This study assessed the influence of attention division, working memory and executive function on stair ascent and descent in young and older adults. Twenty young (25.5 ± 2.1 yrs) and 20 older adults (68.4 ± 5.4 yrs) ascended and descended a 3-step staircase with no simultaneous cognitive task (single-motor task) or while performing a cognitive task (dual-task condition). The cognitive task involved either 1) recalling a word list of the subject's word-span minus 2 words (SPAN-2) to assess the attention division effect, 2) a word list of subject's word-span (SPAN-O) to assess the working memory effect, or 3) recalling in alphabetical order, a word list of the subject's word-span (SPAN-A) to assess the executive function effect...

We investigated the association between elevated plasma concentrations of circulating soluble Vascular Cell Adhesion Molecule-1 (sVCAM-1) and injurious falls and mortality over a 5-year period. We studied the prospective relationship between levels of circulating adhesion molecules and falls in 680 community-dwelling participants in the MOBILIZE Boston Study. The mean sVCAM-1 (±SD) concentration was 1192 ± 428 ng/mL. Over 5-years of follow-up, 10.2% of participants died. The baseline sVCAM-1 (±SD) concentration was 1434 ± 511 ng/mL in those who died vs...

Age-related muscle loss (sarcopenia) is a major clinical problem affecting both men and women - accompanied by muscle weakness, dysfunction, disability, and impaired quality of life. Current definitions of sarcopenia do not fully encompass the age-related changes in skeletal muscle. We therefore examined the influence of aging and sex on elements of skeletal muscle health using a thorough histopathological analysis of myocellular aging and assessments of neuromuscular performance. Two-hundred and twenty-one untrained males and females were separated into four age cohorts [mean age 25 y (n = 47), 37 y (n = 79), 61 y (n = 51), and 72 y (n = 44)]...

Senescence-accelerated mice are known to display a variety of deficits and signs of accelerated aging, but the specific mechanisms involved in this process are still unclear. In this study, we examined the expression levels of antioxidant enzymes, transcription factors responsible for the regulation of expression of these enzymes, and mitochondrial proteins in the liver of SAMP10 and SAMR1 mice at 3 and 12 months of age using western blotting analysis. To investigate the amount of oxidative damage to DNA, levels of 8-OHdG were measured in the liver of these mice...